 So we had some elections yesterday, and it was basically a mixed bag. I don't want to be too down, but there were Some significant things that took place that leaves me feeling a little bit demoralized But let me get to the good first of all because a number of DSA endorsed candidates ended up winning their races For example Javier Mabry in district one for Colorado State House Tiffany Chan Kumar for the Ithaca Common Council Rachel Ventura for the Illinois State District and perhaps the largest victory for the left of the night was progressive Delia Ramirez Who won her primary in the third congressional district of Illinois? Despite having the Democratic majority for Israel spend more than $160,000 to stop her so there were a lot of victories, especially at the local level but at the national level the left they took one step forward with Delia and a Huge step backwards because Marie Newman who defeated incumbent corporate Democrat Dan Lipinski a couple of years ago Who was one of the last anti-abortion Democrats? She was ousted from Congress. She lost her primary now. Thanks to redistricting She was forced to run against another incumbent Democrat and she lost by a landslide in fact Democrat Sean Castin Defeated her 7.9 to 28.9% and she will not be going back to Congress now as Akilah Lacy of the Intercept reports in a hotly contested 2020 primary progressive Marie Newman the Justice Democrats candidate for Illinois third congressional district ousted eight term representative Dan Lipinski one of the last anti-abortion Democrats in Congress many House Democrats countered party norms by backing Newman choosing to stand up for reproductive rights rather than exhibit loyalty to the incumbent quote I think that an anti-choice position is a relic of our past and it is firmly in the Republican ideology And I do not think that this is what our party should be standing for said representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the time But on Tuesday night in the nation's first primary election since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade The first term representative was voted out of Congress by a large margin Illinois redistricting forced Newman into a member-on-member primary and she opted to run against representative Sean Castin Who was elected in 2018 and be the sixth term Republican during her first primary as an incumbent Newman faced challenges from outside Congress and within Outside groups that spent just under half a million dollars against her and a congressional ethics probe that ultimately hurt her candidacy Hers is the first loss of an incumbent backed by Justice Democrats So on one hand, this is a case of the Democratic Party successfully pushing out a progressive member of Congress who they do not want in Their caucus but on another hand This is also a case of Marie Newman shooting herself in the foot because of the ethics probe Now we'll talk about what the probe was in a moment But it turns out that in this particular race the Democratic Party's base rejected corruption Now it's interesting because in the 28th congressional district of Texas They embraced corruption when it came to Henry Cuellar albeit, you know, he just won by a very small margin But still oftentimes Democratic Party voters, they don't necessarily care about corruption But in this instance it did hurt Marie Newman now the reason why she was facing an ethics probe is because well as Rolling Stone reports She engaged in a literal quid pro quo She made a job offer to buy complicity from a potential opponent and that is a move that is unethical It's incredibly sleazy and it's gross now as somebody who ideologically is aligned with Marie Newman I have no problem condemning her action there. She should have known better She should have known that something like that would be at a memo morally questionable But she still chose to do that offer the job in exchange for him not running against her and that's just that's gross But at the same time is she more or less corrupt than her opponent who defeated her because Sean Castin has accepted Thousands of dollars from special interests. For example, he took $1,000 in blood money from defense packs He took over $5,000 from health industry packs and unsurprisingly He does not support Medicare for all just like his health industry donors want now That's not to say that I'm excusing Marie Newman's behavior But I think that all forms of corruption are bad But one form of corruption has been so normalized that voters don't think twice about it That is taking money from special interests and then doing their bidding in turn every single member of Congress I don't care what their ideology is they acknowledge that Medicare for all is the right policy Because that is the policy that works in other countries having a single payer or a national health care system Isn't just more affordable But it yields better outcomes so everyone knows everyone with the brain anyways knows maybe Marjorie Green isn't smart enough to Realize that but most people know that Medicare for all is the policy that would save lives But yet they take money from their health industry donors and then they choose to back the policy That hurts people and kills people literally so that legalized bribery is a form of corruption But still you know what Marie Newman did. There's no excuse for it. It is Morally questionable, but if I am faced with the decision of choosing between a Morally questionable corporate Democrat who doesn't support Medicare for all and another morally questionable progressive Democrat Who does support Medicare for all a policy that would save literally tens of thousands of lives every single year yeah, I'm going to have to make that utilitarian calculation and Support the progressive Democrat who also engaged in a quid pro quo That's not to say that I wouldn't support her being expelled from Congress in the event They were to pass a broad sweeping anti-corruption bill But still like I'm not going to hold Progressives to a higher standard than Democrats hold themselves to all corruption is bad But with corruption being ubiquitous in Congress with the state of the country being the way that it is I'd rather just support Marie Newman in this race and then try to primary her with another leftist in the future Not just let the corporate Democrat win and I think that the corruption of Sean castin is worse Then what Marie Newman did there? So, you know overall it's a sad situation, but thankfully we do have dealier Ramirez But rather than adding one more progressive to Congress now, it's a net zero Benefit so that's unfortunate to me now. I want to talk about another race Many of you probably have heard thanks to an article from the New York Times that the Democratic Party is spending in GOP Primary races in order to prop up extremist insurrectionist candidates that they think they'll be able to beat easier in the fall Now, I know what you're thinking wait Isn't that the same pied-piper strategy that Democrats used in 2016 that led to Donald Trump winning? Well, yes, you'd be correct. That is a very astute observation But Democrats apparently have not learned their lesson and they're doing it again now when it comes to Colorado This is an ad that they ran in favor of a Republican now It's a little bit bizarre at first based on the framing, but just take a look and then I'll explain it when we come back How conservative is Ron Hanks? Hanks was rated one of the most conservative members in the state house He says Joe Biden's election was a fraud Hanks wants to ban all abortions and he wants to build Trump's border wall Hanks even sponsored a bill that would allow concealed carry with no permits Ron Hanks Too conservative for Colorado Democratic Colorado is responsible for the content of this advertising Now you may be thinking hang on a second that sounds like they're attacking him right except no They're using reverse psychology expecting GOP primary voters in this state to think wait a second That doesn't sound like he's too conservative. It seems like he's not a rhino. That sounds like somebody who I might want to get behind Yeah, now to really appreciate the full scale of absurdity Democrats also They ran an attack ad against the opponent of Ron Hanks and they literally Democrats attacked Biden and lumped his opponent with Biden saying that he supports Big spending basically trying to make it seem as if O'Day is a rhino. Take a look Politician Joe O'Day is not who he says he is O'Day says he wants to rein in government spending But he supports Biden's one point two trillion dollar spending bill and before running for Senate is a Republican O'Day actually supported Democrats and even gave money to Michael Bennett O'Day also donated to John Hickenlooper Even after he signed new gun safety measures into law O'Day Colorado deserves a straight shooter Democratic Colorado was responsible for the content of this advertising now again. That was an advertisement paid for by Democrats Now they spent more than a million dollars Trying to influence this particular GOP primary and guess what it blew up in their face because the moderate ended up winning as HuffPost explains Republican businessman John O'Day won Tuesday's GOP Senate primary in Colorado overcoming Democratic interference To boost his primary opponent and potentially setting up a close race with Democratic Senator Michael Bennett in the fall O'Day defeated state representative Ron Hanks a January 6 insurrection attendee who built much of his campaign around former president Donald Trump's lies about the election and was widely seen as unelectable in Colorado Which backed president Joe Biden by 14 percentage points in 2020 O'Day a relative moderate has accepted Biden's victory and is seen as potential threat to Bennett National Republicans were not so quietly rooting for O'Day though They did not spend directly on the race in other words rather than spending that money on a tight race in the general election Democrats wasted all of that money Elevating an insurrectionist also they might have a little bit easier of a time winning in November. I Mean had they tried just having a message See this is the difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party the establishments more specifically, right? The GOP they don't really seem to care about primaries. They don't spend much money there They focus their energy trying to defeat Democrats in general elections Whereas Democrats they meddle in primaries not just Democratic Party primaries, but GOP primaries and they focus all of their energy trying to defeat progressives Do you see why Republicans end up winning more often than not? Because they let the base decide and then they spend to defeat the Democrat whereas Democrats They don't really care with the base wants They just want to make sure that they have their preferred candidate in the general and even if that individual ends up losing Well, at least they defeated the progressive and when it comes to, you know, GOP primaries now They're trying to spend to influence those as well in order to make their lives a little bit easier I mean even in the event Ron Hanks were to win and Michael Bennett would have an easier time beating him because I'm assuming that they saw polls that Indicated that that would be the case. You are elevating an insurrectionist who was a threat to democracy In no way should Democrats ever be spending a penny to assist an insurrectionist who literally poses a threat to democracy They do everything in their power to defeat progressives like Marie Newman like Jessica Cisneros like Nina Turner the list goes on But when it comes to the general Their strategy is weak. They have no message So these races were really interesting and I just wanted to let you know about them We lost the progressive and the Democratic strategy is already proving to be a failure So if it's already a failure Now imagine how bad it's gonna be in November I mean look if they don't reverse course and they don't start delivering for the American people if Biden doesn't start using His pen to sign executive orders to cancel student debt and make our lives better They're gonna get wiped out now Maybe Roe will change that maybe voters are going to be more likely to want to come out and vote for Democrats now Because they believe that they need to have a bigger majority in order to codify Roe I'm not necessarily sure but Democrats they have no vision They have no strategy and this is why we are in danger because in the face of fascism Democrats cannot get their act together and that makes everyone in the country including the country itself less safe